Sunday, October 28, 2012

Sources report that SEIU-UHW and the “partnership unions"
have secretly inked a deal with Kaiser Permanente to lay off more than 1,000 workers
in California.

Tasty's sources provided a copy of an internal email that was sent last week by Kaiser's top executives to managers. The email announces plans for 550
layoffs in Southern California and apparently will be followed by a similar email to announce layoffs in Northern California.

The email -- dated October 23 and authored by Arlene
Peasnall (Senior VP of Human Resources) and Judy White (Chief Operating Officer
of the Southern California Permanente Medial Group) -- is entitled
"Workforce Reduction Announcement and Manager Communication Tools." It gives the following information to Kaiser’s managers (the complete email is
posted below):

As you are aware,
Kaiser Permanente Southern California has undertaken a series of cost-reduction
initiatives... Examples include operational efficiency changes and work
approaches to reduce medical center and administrative operating expenses…

These reductions will
be announced in two stages, with unrepresented employees being informed between
October 24 and 26, and represented employees scheduled to be notified within
the next few weeks… The estimated total number of affected employees is 550, of
which 466 are represented employees and 84 are unrepresented staff.

Attached are talking
points, FAQs and communications guidelines to help you honestly and accurately
discuss our workforce reduction actions and reasons behind them…

Please contact
your local Human Resource director or consultant if you have any questions or
need additional support.

Sources say that during the summer, SEIU-UHW and the “partnership unions" began secretly discussing the layoffs with Kaiser execs. In addition, they report that SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan voiced no opposition to the job cuts... even
though Kaiser has pocketed $7.4 billion in profits and has steadily signed up more and more members in California.

This report is corroborated by an internal email from
officials at UNAC, an affiliate of AFSCME that represents many of Kaiser's
registered nurses in Southern California. Ken Dietz, the president of UNAC, says that UNAC has been discussing the layoffs
with Kaiser since August.

Deitz tells UNAC’s members that he and others opposed
Kaiser’s layoffs and offered alternatives to the job cuts… but that Kaiser simply ignored them. Here’s an excerpt from Deitz’s email, which is dated October
26:

To UNAC/UHCP Health Care Professionals:

…Kaiser approached the Coalition of KP Unions in August to
discuss “affordability” issues. Kaiser’s definition of affordability is
different than the dictionary’s. Affordability to them does not mean they are
actually losing money; it does not mean they are not making money; it simply
means they are not making “enough” money.

We held multiple meetings using Interest Based Problem
Solving, where we generated a multitude of ideas for ways to save money. From
KP’s perspective, the ideas were not enough to “close the gap.”

Here’s the full email from UNAC. The email from Kaiser’s
execs is below:

Subject:Important Information from UNAC/UHCP President Ken Deitz

To UNAC/UHCP Health Care Professionals:

Upon my return from our 40th Anniversary
Convention, I was shocked at the number of calls and emails waiting for
me regarding “layoffs” at Kaiser. Let me take a moment to address some
of the rumors.

Kaiser approached the Coalition of KP
Unions in August to discuss “affordability” issues. Kaiser’s definition
of affordability is different than the dictionary’s. Affordability to
them does not mean they are actually losing money; it does not mean they
are not making money; it simply means they are not making “enough”
money.

We held multiple meetings using Interest
Based Problem Solving, where we generated a multitude of ideas for
ways to save money. From KP’s perspective, the ideas were not enough to
“close the gap.” An amazing statement given the fact that Bill Rouse
developed a plan for them to save hundreds of millions of dollars over a
3-5 year period. Since it was our plan, KP did what most employers do:
they tried to pick it apart. It became quite clear why they believed the
plan would not work:

1. The plan was our idea
2. The plan required critical thinking
3. The plan required work
4. The plan required a level of competency that management is not capable of

As of today, our union, UNAC/UHCP, has received no formal notice of layoffs affecting our members.

Nevertheless, due to email communication directed at managers, we have filed charges at the National Labor Relations Board for Kaiser’s direct dealing with the members and failure to bargain to impasse any changes.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Remember the post
about the three SEIU-UHW shop stewards who were recently sued for violating civil
rights laws?

A source tells Tasty that at least one of these SEIU-UHW stewards
is now facing a second investigation for allegedly using her union position to extort vacation benefits from her co-workers.

Here’s what workers say:

Tina Anderson is an
SEIU-UHW shop steward in the Environmental Services Department at Kaiser
Permanente’s Vallejo Medical Center. Apparently, Tina used up all of her
accrued vacation… so she devised the following scheme to replenish her vacation
time.

She reportedly went from worker to worker in her department
and demanded that they “donate” a portion of their vacation time to her… or else she
would get one of the department’s supervisors to make their lives hell. Apparently,
she also added a little “carrot” to her “stick” by telling her co-workers that
if they complied with her demands, she’d instruct the department’s managers to
leave them alone.

In fact, perhaps Tina Anderson is simply taking SEIU’s partnership
with Kaiser to a whole new “21st
century” level. Or perhaps she’s modeling her career after John
August, who’s reportedly been using his powerful position within the
Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions to prey on others.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A source sent Tasty
this incredible story involving Dave Regan and the Canadian border police.

Here’s what happened.

Recently, the International Association of Machinist (IAM)
held its once-every-four-years convention in Toronto, Canada. Prior to the
convention, SEIU’s Dave Regan hatched a scheme to monkey-wrench the machinists’
convention because of the machinists' support for NUHW

Regan instructed his staff to recruit some unsuspecting
SEIU-UHW members from Kaiser Permanente’s hospitals in California and then send
them to Canada to carry out his secret plot. Regan instructed his staffers to
deliberately keep the rank-and-file workers in the dark about the purpose of
their trip. Instead, workers were told they were going on an all-expenses-paid trip to Canada on behalf
of SEIU.

After arriving at Toronto’s airport, the workers were
asked by Canadian customs officials: “What's the purpose of your trip to Canada?” The SEIU-UHW members responded that, uhh, they weren’t really sure, but their union had sent them there for
some kind of union business. The gracious Canadians kindly allowed their
neighbors from the south to enter the country.

Hours later, SEIU officials broke the news to the Kaiser
workers that they’d been sent there to disrupt the IAM’s convention. The
handful of Kaiser workers -- along with a few staffers from an SEIU local in
Toronto -- were instructed to carry out a hare-brained scheme that has the familiar fingerprints of SEIU staffers Amado David, Greg Maron
and Steve Trossman.

So what happened?

The group of approximately 10 SEIUers valiantly attempted to
assault the convention of more than 2,000 machinists. Apparently, one SEIUer entered
the convention center and made a beeline for the bathroom, where he
courageously tried to hang pro-SEIU leaflets in toilet stalls. Another SEIUer donned
a gorilla mask and unsuccessfully attempted to rush the stage where IAM
officials were addressing the 2,000 delegates.

Not the smartest move.

Soon, the purple foot soldiers were surrounded by machinists
and Canadian police officers on a street corner outside the convention. There,
they were questioned by police about multiple violations of Canada’s
penal code, including trespassing and disrupting a private event.

When it finally came time for the Kaiser workers to head
back to sunny California, they breathed a sigh of relief and made their way to Toronto’s
airport. That’s where they got the biggest shock of their trip.

At the
airport, the Kaiser workers were confronted by Canadian immigration authorities -- the same
ones who’d accepted their not-so-believable story when they first entered the
country.

It turns out that the immigration officials had already been
contacted by the police about SEIU's multiple criminal acts at the convention
center, and that the immigration authorities were none too pleased that SEIU
had taken advantage of Canada’s friendly approach.

So what did they do?

The immigration authorities announced they were banning the Kaiser workers from ever returning to Canada. Ouch!

Tasty hears that by the time they touched down in California, these SEIU-UHW members were
none too pleased with Dave Regan and his deceitful ways. Their “all-expenses trip to
Canada” had become "a lifetime ban" facilitated by healthy doses of lies from Regan and SEIU.

SEIU storms Labor Notes conference.

Not surprisingly, this isn't the first time Regan has pulled
this trick on SEIU’s members. In 2008, he instructed his staff to recruit busloads of SEIU members to
travel to Dearborn, Michigan... also under false pretenses.

Tragically, one of SEIU’s rank-and-file members -- a homecare worker named David Smith -- died of a
heart attack during Regan’s violent assault on the convention. SEIU also sent a 67-year-old conference-goer to the hospital after pushing her to the floor
and cutting open her head.

So, for all you SEIU members out there: If SEIU ever asks you to get on a bus or join them for
an all-expenses-paid trip, you know what to say.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Last week, food service workers at Brown University became the latest group to abandon the purple ship.

In Providence, Rhode Island, approximately 200 workers voted to decertify SEIU Local 615 and to join an independent union called the
United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island (USAW-RI). During previous NLRB elections at the university, a super-majority of the workers voted to leave SEIU.

So why are Rhode Island's workers leaving SEIU?

It's a story that’ll be very familiar to California's healthcare workers. Here’s what a food service
worker told the Brown
Daily Herald after the recent NLRB election:

Gloria Fraielli, a
first cook who works in Dining Services, approached McAninch with a series of
complaints about the SEIU during the summer. Fraielli told The Herald that many
of the workers were dissatisfied with the lack of SEIU representatives present
on campus to hear their concerns.

“They have a local
office here, but there is never anybody there in the office. So if you place a
call there, you would be lucky to get a call back,” she said. “We sort of got
forgotten about.”

Meanwhile, workers say USAW-RI is far more
effective at the bargaining table and is far more democratic and responsive to its members. Interestingly, a blogsite called “Union
Librarian” describes historical parallels between USAW-RI and NUHW.

For instance, here's how USAW-RI was formed: In
2002, Andy Stern told the Rhode Island workers -- who were then members of SEIU Local 134 -- that the Purple Palace was going to transfer them to another SEIU local. A super-majority of the workers signed a petition opposing SEIU's heavy-handed move. SEIU's top officials, however, simply ignored the workers and imposed a trusteeship.

Next, workers decided to form their own independent union. The Purple Palace responded by targeting the new
union’s leaders with a harassing lawsuit that accused them of “breaching their fiduciary duty”
to SEIU International. Sound familiar?

So... what’s the status of workers' efforts to create their own democratic, effective union? The Rhode Island workers first established their new union in 2002-03. Today, virtually all of the former members of SEIU Local 134 have decertified
SEIU and joined USAW-RI! Plus, workers from other worksites have also voted to join USAW-RI.

It's quite a story.. and it deserves attention from California's healthcare workers!

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